.Real.Greg.Lee.

Thursday morning, we had a group of ministers from around the area meet at Suncrest.  It’s a great group of guys who serve churches of all shapes and sizes throughout the area.  We share a brotherhood in that we all serve non-denominational churches who want to fulfill Jesus’ prayer that we all be united in order to reach the world with his grace.

After breakfast at Suncrest, we went over and walked “The Shrine of Christ’s Passion.  It was a powerful experience…and I couldn’t believe I had waited a year to visit this place that is about 3 minutes from the church.  I won’t wait another year to go back.

Everything about it was inspiring.  The beauty of the bronze statues and the whole design.  The attention to detail throughout.  The story of how it came about through vision and generosity.  The scriptures that you listen to throughout.  People have come from far and wide to experience it, but its in our backyard.  You should go!

http://www.shrineofchristspassion.org

Posted in Suncrest

Every month our elders have dinner together and invite one of our staff members.  Tonight was with Chris Hall, our East Campus Student ministry director.

It’s fun for me to look up in our staff meetings and see Chris sitting at the table.  10 years ago, I would look up in our middle school ministry and see that same face.  Man am I getting old.

Some things haven’t changed in Chris over those 10 years.  He is as genuine as they come.  He puts himself through the annual grief of rooting for the cubs. 🙂  And his faith is growing…it always has.

Some things have changed.  He was a follower, now he’s a leader.  He has found the girl of his dreams in Ashley with a fall wedding planned (and he was the first to agree when I told the elders tonight that he was “marrying up”).  His ministry perspective has been shaped by a great mentor in Jared Mehrle.

For some time Chris has been a “product” of our mission…someone who’s life was shaped by this church. 

Today, he is a devoted “partner” in accomplishing our mission…serving the church so it can be used by God to change more lives.

Posted in Suncrest

That is the question I’ve thought about for 2 days…so I haven’t blogged about everything.

Here’s the different ideas I thought about…

-The Cardboard stories from Sunday(this will make no sense if you weren’t at suncrest).  We had different ones in each service and they were all incredible.  The most powerful part of the morning was watching them.  The most powerful part of my week was thinking about what I would write on my own.

–Our Attendance.  That’s what most pastors blogged about on Monday! 🙂  Easter is a huge day for all churches and I happen to be a guy who thinks numbers are really, really important (they are lives after all).  But I’m not going to blog about the number.  I’m pretty sure there would be more personal pride in that than there should be.  Yeah, real sure.

-My family.  Jack provided me with a nice story for the Easter sermon.  Jenny served all 4 services in the sound booth.  Abby is my treasure.  My parents were in town for Easter Weekend…that was awesome (even if my schedule didn’t allow as much time for them as I hoped!).  They did get to hang a lot with Jack and Abby.

-The Masters.  Did you see that finish?  My heart was going out to Kenny Perry.

-Josh Prunsky.  After church was done and my parents left, I drove up to Chicago Sunday night to spend a little time at his bedside with his mom and family.  Keep praying for this brave and inspiring young man.  The prayer is now that God would receive him into heaven peacefully and without suffering/pain/seizures.

-Our staff and volunteers.  They gave it their all last week and God blessed it.  For example, our worship folks were either rehearsing or leading worship every single night last week for Celebrate Recovery’s kick-off, passion services, and Easter services.  They are all true servants who just want to be used by God to change lives.  I love you all.

Posted in Suncrest

Stephen Colbert cracks me up.  I love the chance to catch his show on Comedy Central becuase I think he’s a smart comic.

A couple nights ago, he interviewed a “scholar” who is dimissive of some of the fundamentals of historical Christianity.  This is funny, but I’m actually impressed that in the interview Colbert makes some really simple points (in his own hilarious way).

Enjoy…by clicking here

Posted in Suncrest

Our whole family was supposed to be at the Passion services last night, but Abby has come down with something and Jenny decided to stay home with the kids.  At the last minute, Jack asked if he could still go with me, so it became a father-son outing. 

The service was excellent (I got to simply worship without leading) and Jack had a blast in the kid’s area.  On the way out the door at almost 9:00pm, I asked him if he wanted to go anywhere before we went home.  He suggested getting a soft taco from Taco Bell.  By the time we got half-way to Crown Point it had changed to Dairy Queen and on our way there we instead pulled in to Baskin Robbins.

The next half hour was one of the best I’ve had in a long time:

• Watching him pick from 31 flavors (he chose Strawberry Banana).
• Talking about what it takes to get clean water in Africa and how easy it is at our house…he brought it up.
• I told him the well they had to dig in Africa was 20 feet deep and to explain it I told him the ceiling in Baskin Robbins was probably 12 feet.  He said “so the well was about twice as tall as the ceiling”.  Tell me he’s not the smartest 5 year old ever.
• He saw a sign (this place doubles as a Dunkin Donuts) where you can win $12,000 if you come up with the best idea for a new Donut.  He had all kinds of ideas (which are supposed to be put on their website, but instead he insisted we share with the manager before we left).
• He LOVED the way they “hid” the number 31 in the baskin robbins logo (above).

On the drive home (now almost 10pm), I told him there was probably a direct correlation between how fast he got in bed and the possibility that mom and dad would think it was a good idea to stay out late for ice cream again sometime.  Pajamas on, teeth brushed and prayers finished within 10 minutes.  Good night.

Posted in Suncrest

One of the worship songs that we do at Suncrest uses the phrase “The wonderful cross”.  It’s always perplexing for me to sing. 

I think that’s OK because I know my faith deepens when I wrestle through issues.  The same song reminds me that the cross “bids me come and die” so it’s not exactly a feel good song.

The cross is a wonder-filled thing for me and tonight/tomorrow at suncrest our Passion Experiences (7pm) will focus us there.  Here are the scriptures I’m reading to prepare (for maximum impact…read them slowly and reflectively):

(Mat 16:24 NIV)  Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

(2 Cor 5:21 NIV)  God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

(Phil 2:8 NIV)  And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death– even death on a cross!

(1 Cor 1:17-18 NIV)  For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel–not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.  For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

(Heb 12:2-3 NIV)  Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

And looking forward to Easter…

(Acts 2:23-24 NIV)  This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.  But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.

Posted in Suncrest

I’m competitive.  I embrace it.  It’s not always healthy (I have a story about getting a technical foul on my high school basketball team).  But most of the time it is. 

I had someone tell me competition is a sin once.  They are wrong.  You always need to keep your motives in check, but a drive to win isn’t wrong especially if the result is wholesome.  It makes me (and others) work harder, think more deeply, get engaged in strategic thinking, and energize the journey…to either victory or defeat.

The competitive juices have been flowing recently.  In both my NCAA pools I was on top midway through and then faded. 

In our extended family one, Jack (our 5 year old) beat 9 others in his first try ever:

Jack  1476

Ben   1427

Greg  1334

Mom   1250

Dad   1248

Megan 1090

Beth  1070

Tim   1013

Jonathan    1009

Karen 934

Eric  818

In our suncrest one, Doug Gamble won:

DOUG GAMBLE

Bobby Jackson

Denise Tribble

Nathan

Chris

Leslie

Diane

Greg

DEV
Kevin/Patti

Scott

Cindy

Laurie

Jared/Miss Sue

JW

Robin

Clara

MB
Melissa

And yesterday we weighed in for the final time in our 3 month biggest loser competition.  I think I actually won this one.  I won’t list everyone’s stats, but since early January, I’ve gone from 206 to 178.  28 pounds.  Now the competition is over, of course, so we’ll see if other motivations kick in to keep me there!

Posted in Suncrest

I tell people everywhere how much I love our church.  Apparently, I’m not the only one. 

While I was prepping a talk for leaders at Community Christian Church, I did a little historical digging at our stats.  I like both stats and stories, becuase I don’t think either one can tell the whole story, but here our 2 graphs I showed our staff this morning in our monthly meeting.  God has been very good to our church recently.

I used titles I think are better, but these are essentially Attendence and Offering graphs.  Just over 2008, we’ve already seen double-digit percentage growth in both attendence and offerings in the first 3 months.  No doubt the addition of a 2nd campus has opened up some incredible opportunites.

Posted in Suncrest

It is an understatement to say I spent some time today with people in challenging circumstances.

This afternoon, I went to visit Josh Prunsky at Children’s Hospital in Chicago.  This young man has inspired many during his year plus battle with cancer.  It was a tough weekend health-wise, but his smile was as inspiring as the updates he writes on his caring bridge website.  Here is the link for that:  http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/joshuaprunsky

Tonight I went to our spring kick-off for Celebrate Recovery.  Lots of people there and we heard 3 powerful stories of how God has used this ministry in people’s lives.  These stories were so powerful and remind me how central CR is to our mission:  Being used by God to change lives. 

Can’t come close to describing it here.  If you are working through something challenging in your life, you should make ti to west campus 7:00 every Monday night.  Beginning next week, the experience is totally confidential.

Posted in Suncrest

Been a full week. And today crowned it.

For the first time, we synced up our two campuses to be on the same week (instead of running east campus a week behind).  I recorded the message part Friday morning, but we streamed our Liberia interview (with Jenny and Denise Tribble) live using www.ustream.com …The picture is how it looked on the big screens at the movie theater.

I hope to be able to post a link to the video soon.  Jenny and Denise did a fantastic job…and the text for my message was a very challenging one from Luke 9:57-62.  Here’s one response from the day I got on facebook.

“Great service today, Greg! Loved the “use me as a light in a dark world”. I cried during the whole Africa Q&A part of the service – definitely see myself doing a mission trip this year now. My head can not deny my heart and my heart obviously yearns to help and reach out.”

The highlight for us was spending the day with a group from Harvest Christian Fellowship that had led our trip to Liberia.  They came for our 11:00 service and helped with our 3:00 presentation.  We got to have lunch in between and share lots of stories and meet a couple spouses who weren’t on our trip.  It just reminded me how much I love these guys!

 If you were there this morning, I hope you’ll be at West campus Tuesday night for the meeting about upcoming trips.  No excuses, right?

Posted in Suncrest